


Blood in the Carpet

by forthewidowsinparadise



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mexico, Reunion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15039914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthewidowsinparadise/pseuds/forthewidowsinparadise
Summary: Mickey thought he would thrive in Mexico, but instead he finds himself plunging down and down into his own personal hell. Drug addicted and losing all sense of who he is, all he wants is to go back to Ian. To go home.Ian thought he would thrive without Mickey, but each day is as grey and unfufilling as the last. He is plagued with regret and resentment towards the decisions he's made, and works endless hours to keep from thinking about it.But, when they suddenly find themselves being pulled back together, can things go right back to the way they used to be, or is there a lot more that has been left unsaid?





	1. A Day in the Life

**Author's Note:**

> T/W: mild gun violence, drug abuse

Mickey Milkovich was adept in many a criminal way.

Equipped with the fruits of a loveless childhood and a punishing adolescence, the young felon had the essentials—lock-picking, thievery, assault and the like—down to a tee. He may not have a high school diploma, but to him the difficulty of robbery was akin to that of riding a bike, and the ways of being abused by a pistol were numbered in his head. From first to last.

Almost twenty-three years scaling this hellscape of life, he’d been threatened with a gun as many times as he’s taken a shit. Shot twice, pistol whipped once—hard; he had stared down the inside of a barrel upwards of thirteen times in his life. In the beginning, it was to his father he owed this education. Thanks to Terry’s unmanageable temper—complimented by tabletop arsenals, as common as bowls of fruit in the Milkovich family home—Mickey and his siblings had a textbook knowledge on using the weapon for evil. Mickey knows how it intimidates, how it kills—he knows the pain that is felt when red brass is smashed across your face. The panicked sensation that rocks you in your gut, just before you pass out.

It was the only thing Terry had ever truly taught his sons, hoping to break them, but Mickey remembered one consistency: when threatened, he had _always_ looked his aggressor in the eye.

But, in this moment, his heels heavy in Mexican dirt, he’s reminded: he’s changed in the past year. Not for the better, because as the mid-noon sun glinted off the gun at his temple and right into his eyes, he didn’t know how to handle the situation.

“Where’s the rest of the money?” A face loomed down on him, but it wasn’t his father. It wasn’t that familiar—Spanish, instead, with a thin slick of sweat coating hard features. It was of a man who looked like he’d been callous since infancy—born unafraid. During his travels, Mickey had seen this face on many different men, all who snarled with a frightening mix of pique and authority, eyes so alive that those below knew he was in charge. That he could stop the wind blowing should it try and skew his aim.

Mickey had forgotten how to pretend he was unafraid.

Looking to the ground like it would offer mother’s guidance, he raised his hands in reluctant surrender. His palms were balmy with sweat. “I _gave_ you the money, Antúnez!” He spit out a panicked lie and cringed. It had seemed belligerent—bull-headed—before processed through his mouth. “Put that fuckin’ thing down! Jesus, fuck!” He just sounded like he wanted to live.

“We agreed on five,” Antúnez waves a wad of pesos in Mickey’s face, close enough that he can see the specks of blood stains in the paper. “You give me two. Less than half of what you owe.”

“C’mon, Antúnez. We’re pals, right? Can’t I get a discount or somethin’?” The American bargains. “I can pay you in installments, like a fuckin’ investment. Or, or, or…” He’s breathing too heavy to breath properly, “I can suck your dick, yeah? Goods for services, how about it?”

Antúnez’ bicep flexes, and Mickey seizes up as he hears the safety click off. “You think I’m a fucking queer?”

Panic begins to bubble up his throat. “No, no! C’mon, man! I was just fuckin’ around! Jokin’!” He’s tasting metal in his mouth as the edge of the barrel burrows into his skin. “Chill out! Chill out! I’ll get you the other three hundred! You know I’m good for it!”

Canine-like, Antúnez’ lips curl up around his teeth. _“Tienes el dinero o no?”_ Spanish comes out in a bark—in a bellow that makes Mickey nearly shit himself. He’s jerking the gun harder into Mickey’s forehead, and he can smell the warm stink of blood. Antúnez rolls the gun side to side just slightly, slathering the edges in Mickey’s red before it could start to drip. “We had a deal, and I gave you time.” He fondles the trigger. “Three hundred. Right now, _pendejo,_ or you _die.”_

“Alright! Alright!” Mickey gasped. “Just…just get the gun off my head and I’ll get you the fuckin’ money.”

“Hm. You give in easy.” Antúnez sneered. “Where is it?”

Easy. Mickey had heard a lot of nasty words associated with his name, but most were antonyms of that word. Though, at the moment, he ceased to care: he begins to shake from adrenaline or alarm or a nauseous need, his liver sprouting lilies. _Get it off me. Get it off me._ Like it was a spider, and he was a little girl. “In…in my boot.” He croaks. _Get it OFF._ The gun is no longer pressed into his face. He exhales deeply.

Antúnez nods, still readied to shoot, but backing up so Mickey has room to move. He could run, if he wanted to. With an experienced cartel worker and hitman poised to end him if he did, there was the possibility of losing his life, but there was also the promise of keeping his honour. Since coming to Mexico, he’s been faced with this dilemma so many times that, carefully watching the position of Antúnez’ fingers, it doesn’t even feel like déjà vu. It feels like routine. He once thought he could breeze through as a new man with the same demeanor—as gutsy and fearless as the boy who had looked deep into his father’s eyes—but Antúnez was right about who he’d grown to be. Bending down with one hand still raised, all Mickey can offer is a white flag and a prayer, because it’s _easier_ this way.

He slips off his boot and pulls three hundred pesos from under the insole, performing a balancing act to show his resignation. He gave Antúnez the money, handing him his pride, and Antúnez handed him the heroin. “Next time you want horse that potent, make sure you have the cash.” The dealer sniffed, tucking the cash into his jeans. “The boss busts his ass to make that shit as good as it is, so he’d give me hell if I came back empty handed.”

Mickey nods, letting beads of sweat and blood drip from his forehead onto the baggie in his hands. He squeezes it lightly and watches as the powder pushes outwards, leaving little room in the bag for regret or the acknowledgement of shame. Troublingly, he even sighs with relief.

He goes to leave, but Antúnez doesn’t let him. Not yet. He stands with his gun on his hip—still loaded, safety still off—and his hand out. Mickey’s fingers tighten protectively around the bag. “What?”

Antúnez rubs his thumb against his fingers. “For my troubles.”

Any blood leaves Mickey’s face. “Cut it out, man.” He replies weakly, with a degree of unsureness that would have been uncharacteristic a year ago. “You know I don’t have any more money.”

“Really?” Antúnez raises his eyebrows. “Hernando Puga—your old dealer I believe? Good friend of mine, told me you’re the best white pickpocket in Guerrero. Always with cash on you. Lots of cash.”

To an extent, he was correct. Mickey was a thief by trade nowadays. He’d had intentions of going legit after he’d settled himself on this side of the border, but on his own—what with the way he was raised—he lacked impulse control. Once he’d first pulled ten pesos from the back pocket of an affluent tourist, it wasn’t long before he realized that thievery was the best sin to trade for a supper. He’d survived up until now, but the best in Guerrero? Antúnez either heard Puga wrong or is trying to get to him because, though he was markedly quieter as a person these days—and, as the only admirable result, was stealthier—he was caught with his hand in a purse just today. He’d handled the situation, of course—the blood on Antúnez’ payment was no coincidence—but, in the end, he’d slit a throat for a fake Gucci bag and barely enough cash to get him drugs and food for one week. Now, drugs for a week, food for a night—at least, if he could weasel his way out of _this_ situation. The only problem was that the man he was trying to swindle would never make the same mistakes Mickey had.

“Sure. I get cash.” Mickey tried to keep cool. “Cash I just gave to _you.”_

Antúnez raises his eyebrows again, his eyes cutting a purposeful trail from Mickey’s stash, to his own gun, and then straight into Mickey’s tired eyes. Mickey didn’t have much confidence, and it showed, which made Antúnez smile—a revolting, knowing smile. And that’s all it took: Mickey pressed his lips together, reaching into his briefs with submissive abandon.

Antúnez took the money like it didn’t matter if it had been wedged to a man’s ballsack just moments earlier, and continued to smile in a way that should have made Mickey feel small. But instead Mickey felt nothing—turned to leave like it was nothing—abandoning more of who he used to be in the folds of coughed-up pesos.

He returned to his car just before dark. That was home nowadays.

Despite what it looked like, it was a borderline liveable situation, which was about all Mickey could hope for at this juncture in life. With the help of a few thugs and a couple hundred dollars, he’d removed the back seats, reinforced the locks and created a disgusting cocoon for himself and his habits. He’d laid out a dirty sleeping bag in the corner, a balled up jacket for a pillow and, when he shut himself in, he was trapped with an overwhelming scent of car freshener and vomit. All was Mickey’s doing, having christened his more-than-humble abode with the unpleasant bodily mishaps of an amateur heroin user and cardboard plastered over intact windows, keeping out the fresh air. It also kept out any light, making the car darker than it should have been with the moon so bright.

_Good._ Mickey thought of the darkness as, this way, he could see very little of the tourniquet he was tying around his bicep. He could pretend the passivity of today never happened—that he wasn’t acting reckless as a result of having lost everything that made him characteristically _Mickey,_ even though he knew that’s exactly what was happening. He tightened it as much as he could, and the anticipation of escaping made him anxious; using his lighter for light, he surveyed his arm for a section that wasn’t yet speckled with track marks, and tried not to think too much about it. The needle went in and, _yes._ Darkness was a thing of the past and of the near future, but not the now.

Filled to the brim with horse, Mickey slumps onto his make-shift bed, the siren of euphoria laying on top of his body like she’s making love to him. She reaches her hands up his anal cavity, through his intestines and stomach—far enough to caress his heart and lungs into a state of lethargy. He smiles a hollow smile as he feels void of anything but warmth. _It’s so much better this way._ This way, he does not see his father’s face in the back of his head. He does not see Antúnez or Puga or any of the dozen other cartel members who’ve ever held a gun to his head.

The face he does see should be worse, but it’s not. This face is of someone who wronged him—who impaled him, disfigured him, tore the limbs from his body— but not in that way. Not with guns, like he was used to; not externally, not physically.

It was because of this face that Mickey's "new life" in Mexico was nothing but new. It was high on heroin—a life of slouching and surviving and pretending and the like—but it wasn’t new. Sure, it looked different--smelled foreign, like the dirt was made of something different than in Chicago--but darkness still came every night. And, as high up as he was, Mickey knew it was there. Always: it was that same, age-old darkness, pooling at the bottom of his heart like the threat of drowning.

Only now the water level was creeping up, the drug content at an all-time high, and there was a slight tinge of yellow from when Ian Gallagher had pissed in it.

Ian Gallagher, whose face is synonymous with the drugs taking hold. Ian, who lied to Mickey, abandoned Mickey, even though they loved each other in a once-only kind of way. Ian, who Mickey tells himself he hates.

But then the siren holds his heart tighter. Ian. Mickey smiles when he sees his eyes.

She squeezes, and she moans, and her most guttural notes sound like his. “Ian.” Mickey smiles when he sees his ridiculously strong jaw, his impossibly red hair.

“You fucker.” Mickey laughs, flushed with the artificial sensation of love and peace and fulfillment. “I knew you’d come back.”

The mirage of Ian says nothing, but smiles.

“I love you.” Mickey says. “I love you. I love you.”

He falls asleep in love with the world.

But the high leaves too soon, and he wakes up with a heart sore from all the squeezing.

He stares at the roof for a moment or two when, for the first time on the ground—for the first time in a year—he begins to cry. He cries for the same reasons he shoots up. _I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore. There is nobody here to remind me._

_I want to go home._

He cries for these reasons—for an hour--before he remembers the real reason he was in tears. It was the Fourth of July. The hole in his gut, the piece that was missing—yes, sure, of course—it was adaptation pains. He just wasn’t used to the skies being void of fireworks this time of year. Yes, that’s all. Nothing more. Nothing more. _Nothing._

Costuming his feelings was a cap for his tears, bottling them away for the next time he realizes he’s faking it. So he takes another hit, and the siren in his head spills images of fireworks like coffee over all prospects of returning home. But, though he smiled through it, his eyes never completely dried, and the pictures on his eyelids never really changed. Mandy, Ian, The Alibi, the dugouts, Ian, the high school bleachers, the Gallagher’s front stoop, Ian.  
Ian.

Home.

Nothing could erase the images from his head, so he just went back to sleep.


	2. When Worse Comes to Worst

On October fourth, Ian went into work like always. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say it was his entire life now, because it truly was the only notable event in his day-to-day routine. He lived at that station—in that ambulance. He’d worked the graveyard shift the night before, and the night before, and the night before—which, for an EMT, was high-energy enough that the name held some pretty heavy irony—and, like most days, here he was again only four hours later. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, strangely so. 

He bounces into the locker room with a tray of coffees teetering on his forearm. “Mornin’, Raoul.” He just as well drops the cup on the table, heavily creamed coffee splashing out from under the unsealed lid. Raoul, still half asleep, dabs his finger in the spillage and licks it off. “Nice. Thanks, Ian.”

“Morning, Ashley.” He laid down the second coffee a bit softer this time.

Ashley was surprised to see him, but smiled nonetheless. “Morning. Still haven’t gone home yet?”

She offers him the chair next to her, but Ian turns it down. “Yeah, I went home, but now I’m back.” He quips, laughing into his own coffee. Black and strong. He licks it off his lips for something to do. 

Ashley gives him an odd look. “Didn’t you just get off at five? Georgia said you took her shift—graveyard.”

“Yeah.” He sips at his drink again. “I start again at ten.”

“No rest for the wicked, huh?”

Ian smiles and raises his cup in solidarity. “The righteous don’t need any.” 

There’s one cup left in the tray. He turns to Rita: of course, she’s eyeing him suspiciously—sometimes Ian wonders if she knows how to look at him any differently. He immediately feels under pressure, but approaches her anyway.

“Good morning, boss.” He says, feeling guarded but sounding chipper.

Rita takes the coffee, but her mouth communicates through pressed-together lines and the scrutinizing accompaniment of her eyes, rather than with words. Knowing exactly what she’s thinking, Ian tries to sober up—turning down the brightness in his eyes—before she can assess him thoroughly enough. But, the way he frowns so suddenly, he might as well have told her outright: _I might be manic right now. Or maybe I’m actually happy. Or maybe I’m in a really, really bad place and being here helps me not to acknowledge that. I don’t know how to tell the difference…_

She caught the gist in the look on his face. “Go home and get some rest Gallagher.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You’re hyperactive, not sleeping…”

“I’m _fine._ I’ve just been…”

“Those are two telltale symptoms of a manic episode, Ian.” Rita raises an eyebrow, her lips twitching upwards in a knowing fashion when only a puff of air comes from Ian’s open mouth. 

He closes it, then opens it again; closes, opens, then gives a kind of sneering laugh. “What, so you’ve been reading up on bipolar now?” He says irritably. Great; now his happy mood was gone. 

“I’m not taking any chances with you, Gallagher,” was always Rita’s excuse for treating him like a basket-case. “I’m sorry.”

Ian scrunched his nose: he hated being handled like his disorder made him _in need_ of handling. He wasn’t in need—he was an adult, with adult responsibilities and an adult mind. A chemically unbalanced and heavily medicated mind, but a capable adult one all the same. 

He could handle himself.

“We can call Lee in to ride with me today. Or Maggie.” Sue pipes up from around the corner. She looks Ian straight in the eyes with a softer gaze than Rita’s, but just as unyielding. “She’s right, Ian.” 

“But, Sue…” 

“You know she’s right.”

Rita gestures around her, shoving it in Ian’s face that each of his co-workers shared a similar facial expression: the look of silent siding. Siding with Rita, the _sane_ one. “You know the conditions for keeping this job, Gallagher. Deal’s a deal.” Rita says firmly. “Home. Sleep. Now.”

So he gave in, laying the last of the coffee on the table for Sue, and sulked from the station with his tail between his legs. Walking home, he kept kicking rocks; _why is it always like this?_ He remembers having to fight for this job. Fighting tooth and nail—opening himself up, laying it all out in front of Rita with the hope that a fucked up mixture of hurt and strength would compel her. Calling himself handicapped was painful; he’ll never forget using that word, because it felt worse than anything else. He’d been called crazy, fucked-up, insane. But, with the childhood he’d had—the addict parents, the older lovers, the skewed presentations of how love is to be shown—he’s always been those things in one way or another, and so have the people around him. Fiona has gone crazy. So has Lip, and Carl, and Debbie. Kev and V, Svetlana, Jimmy-Steve, the Milkoviches: all fucking bat-shit. 

But _handicapped_ : he was the only one out of those people that was mentally ill in the clinical sense, medicated and supervised. That was Ian’s burden alone, and he didn’t have the comfort of blaming the South Side for his sickness. Nor did he have the luxury of being able to fix it in one fell swoop. Not with an apology, or a rehab, or a redeeming decision; he couldn’t change this. 

This, not being who he is—despite popular belief, he’s still _Ian,_ disorder and all—but what it’s done to his life. He lives in a boxing ring, fighting for people to understand that he just wants to be treated like everyone else. Fighting for a job that a neuro-typical with his test scores would have no problem keeping. Fighting to keep standing up again while under scrutiny. Fighting for an inch of leeway. Fighting for respect, for equality, for trust. 

Fighting for the people in his life to look at the general information: twenty-two year old male, six feet, one hundred and fifty pounds, red hair, green eyes. He wasn’t a child, or a puppy, or an uncaged bird that might fly into the ceiling fan at the slightest noise. Yet he had to fight for them to take their hands off his cheeks and the sadness from their eyes—for them to see that he can take care of himself. 

He bent down to pick up a rock the size of his palm. He was always, _always_ fighting. 

So why did he even live outside his bubble? Why did he go back to his siblings’ home? Why did he go to work? He crushed his eyes shut and felt the rock in his hand; he knew why. It was distraction. His family sometimes helped but, at the end of the day, work was the only thing that was keeping Ian from fighting with _himself._ Because, when he had time and room to think about anything other than the emergency at hand, he knew exactly what was wrong in his own life. It was that he knew he didn’t _have_ to fight with his siblings, his boss, his demons. There were only two things--one horrifying, the other heartbreaking to think about--that would have given him that freedom:

Had he killed himself, or had he gone to Mexico. 

He opens his eyes as fast as he can, because Mickey’s face is on his eyelids and he suddenly can’t breathe. All the air in his body—all the overwhelming regret—instead sped through the vessels in his arm as he reeled it back. Then he threw it forward, breaking into a sprint as soon as the rock left his hand. 

This is how he knew he wasn’t having an episode. He couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop thinking about whether he’d made the wrong choices in life. He couldn’t rest, because even the pumping of his legs—blood surging through him as he hears the smashing of Bertha Hamilton’s front window, followed by her distinct, masculine yip—only made him miss how life was when he was seventeen. 

His life was grey—the pills, the cotton-mouth, the emptiness—monotonous before and directly after the adrenaline of saving lives, but in his mind Mickey is running beside him. In his mind, Mrs. Hamilton was yelling _“Damn Milkovich!”_ instead of waving her cane at the lone redhead skirting around the street corner. “You’re too fucking old for this, Gallagher!” She screeched instead, because who else in the general vicinity was that tall, with hair that red? “You’re wearing a fucking uniform for Christ’s sake! Grow up!” 

And in his mind—just in his mind—Mickey flips her the bird before following Ian into the alleyway. When they’re alone, he presses Ian to the wall: he’s got dirt on his forehead, hair like a porcupine. He’s eighteen years old. In the reflection in his eyes, Ian sees he’s covered in freckles, and his hair is the colour of rust: he’s seventeen, and life is fucked up, but now he can appreciate how little it sucked in comparison. “It gets so much worse.” Seventeen year old Ian says.

“Can’t get much worse.” Eighteen year old Mickey smiles. “S’long as you ain’t leavin’ me.”

Before Ian could respond, he was in his bedroom, dripping in sweat and short of breath. His eyes blurred, and whether it was from exertion or tears, he couldn’t tell. He sat on the bed to try and steady himself.

He didn’t even notice Lip was lying on the bottom bunk until he spoke. “You get sent home?” He asked, not looking up from his book. “Third time this month. Might be time to up the downers, huh?” 

Barely hearing Lip’s commentary, Ian watched himself in the window. He moved his hair, which was lighter, longer—long, slicked back like it had been when he was dropping to his hands and knees, filling his mouth with flesh for cash. He hadn’t been shaving, which aged him. His freckles were all but gone, which aged him even more. This reflection, it was older, sadder. Alone; Ian tried to catch his breath. “Hmm.” He grunted.

Lip pretended Ian wasn’t acting strange. Or maybe he didn’t notice. “Someone called for you.” He said.

“Who?” 

“Said her name was Yvonne. From the worker’s union.” Lip shrugged, turning a page. “Probably wants to rope you into spending money on some bullshit life insurance, where all your money’ll go to some half-cousin in Wisconsin in the event that some dude sucks your dick so hard your heart explodes.”

Lip licks his thumb before turning another page, and Ian smiles. “We have cousins in Wisconsin?”

This makes Lip fight not to grin. “Maybe brothers even, knowing Monica.”

“Or Frank.” Ian gets up, going to rifle through the dresser drawers. “Where’s the phone?”

Lip looks up then, confusion all over his face. It was starting to fill out again, not so gaunt and dirty—not so Frank-like, now that he wasn’t drinking. He reaches up to pull the phone from under Carl’s pillow and tosses it to Ian. “You’re actually gonna call her back?”

Ian shrugs. “Maybe I’ll get her to come over for a fuck.”

“What, with me?” 

“No, fuck you. With me.” In a spike of silliness, Ian licks out his tongue. “Remember that girl on the L? I’m a pussy-eater now.”

Because it’s been awhile, Ian feels a thin streak of warmth cut through the greyness as Lip snorts so hard he closes his book. “Yeah, maybe with fifteen dental dams layered on top.” He chuckles. “Hate to break it to you, man, but you’re a platinum star homosexual.”

Feigning offense, Ian gives him a dirty look. “Are you calling me a fuckin’ homo?”

“ _Are_ you a homo?”

“Well,” Ian looks to the ceiling, pretending like he has to think about it. “Yes. Now excuse me while I call a woman about a fatal hummer.” 

It’s been much too long since he and Lip had been goofy with each other, like they used to be—everything had been so serious lately, what with Ian’s bipolar and Lip’s alcoholism and the selfishness of trying to protect their own sanities first—but Ian still leaves his brother laughing in their bedroom. He lets the last of his laughter leave his mouth, and the embers of warmth stay in his stomach, albeit faintly. He looks at the number he’s about to redial: Lip said it was the union rep, but Ian knew the woman had lied to him. He recognized that number, almost better than he could remember his own, and the voice who picked up conflicted him. 

“Ian. Hey, you called back.”

It reminded him of playground swings and dead bodies. 

“Mandy?” 

“Yeah.”


	3. Bars

“Are you alright?” 

Ian hears Mandy laugh over the phone, and it’s beautiful. It brings him back to 2011, 2012, 2013—when she was always next to him, as his best friend, or his fake girlfriend, or Lip’s real one—always underfoot and pantless. But she’s sobered since then, and so has Ian, so they both taste the sourness in her laughter, spoilt with the memory of the last time they’d talked. “Yeah, I’m better. Really good now, actually.” She said.

She chuckles again, this time with more genuine peace, but Ian is tense. He feels the need to be ready to put his boots on and leave immediately. “Are you safe?” He was just waiting for Mandy to say the word, and he’d go to her.

But Mandy didn’t seem to be in trouble. “Yeah, Ian, I’m fine.” She assured, almost chirpily. “Pauly heard about what happened that night in the hotel, so he’s added some extra security features. I can handle myself, obviously, but I don’t want to do anything…like that again. Obviously.” 

Ian shudders at what was one of his more gruesome memories, but elects not to talk about it. “Security like what?”

“Bodyguards.”

Ian was quiet for a moment, hearing shuffling from the hallways. He closed the door with his foot. “Bodyguards?” He repeats skeptically, leaning against the sink. “How does that work? Do they like, watch?”

“No, it’s…they’re not in the room.” Mandy says, again with the laughter. Shallow, like a filler—like an obligation. Mandy never did laugh much, so maybe that’s why it sounded so weird, but Ian had never really seen her happy either. He doesn’t say anything about it. “They’re these wristbands, like an Apple watch or some shit.” She continues. “Client gets violent, you press a button, someone’ll bust down the door and beat the shit out of the prick.”

“Like some sort of high-tech rape whistle.” Ian doesn’t mean to sound condescending, but he doesn’t mean to do a lot these days.

“You were a fucking gigolo,” Mandy retorts bluntly, as she does, not having to tell Ian how she feels. _“And_ you helped me hide that body. Don’t act like you don’t understand what goes on.” 

Ian goes a little red, and he’s glad she can’t see it. “You’re right. Sorry.”

“Anyway,” Mandy rolls her eyes, Ian guesses, and moves on. “I’m coming back from Texas, and I’ll be staying in Chicago for the weekend, just passing through. Do you want to meet up?” 

Taking a second longer to shake off the embarrassment, Ian tries to run through his work schedule in his head, but can’t differentiate Tuesday from Thursday.

“Earth to Ian.”

“Yes.” He says, scrapping his schedule with the surety that Rita would allow whatever leave he asked for in his ‘state.’ “Yes, of course. Sorry, what time do you want to meet?”

“I’ll come to you place around seven, is that alright?”

“Yeah.” Ian rubs his eyes. “Seven is fine, I’ll see you then.”

Ian is about to hang up, when he hears Mandy’s breath hitch. He waits one beat, two beats: 

“Ian?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you…” She sounds hesitant, careful. “Are you doing ok?”

Ian’s breath stops, then is pushed out of him by the disappointed furrow of his brow. Of course. Even Mandy, who understands him more than anyone else, can’t think about him without that big, red, bipolar sticker obstructing her view. “I’m fine.” He says, a little too irritably. “I’m on my meds, I’m stable. I’m fine.”

“I…that’s good.” Mandy says. “But I don’t mean with the bipolar.”

The line goes quiet for a moment. Ian can hear Lip turning pages from the bedroom, and Fiona switching out the laundry downstairs, and it’s unnerving.

“Then what do you…”

“I mean about Mickey.”

Ian’s heart stops at the name. Mickey? It’s like she’s been in his head, rummaging around his daily thoughts to find the one thing even he can’t understand. To match the word ‘okay’ to that name is unprecedented, and Ian didn’t know if he had the energy to lie outright. So, instead, he played dumb. “What about him?”

His voice shook, but Mandy didn’t point it out. She was silent for a moment instead, and Ian could feel her breath through the phone as she tried to find her words on her brother. Ian found it incredibly strange, which kept him waiting for an answer. He tried not to think about the fact that, since it was Mickey, there wasn’t a second thought about waiting forever.

“I know I said he’s a piece of shit and you’re better off without him but, I mean…when your ex-boyfriend breaks out of jail and runs off to another country, it’s still gotta fucking suck. Even if he is Mickey Milkovich.” Mandy grunts, finally finding her words; graceless words, but words nonetheless. 

And it did suck. It _does_ suck—Mandy doesn’t even know the half of it—but could Ian admit that to her? No. Could he admit it to himself? Even less likely. “We broke up before he even got locked up, remember?” 

“That doesn’t really answer my question, though.”

“I really don’t want to get into it, Mandy.” Ian sighed, a red hot pain spreading from his ears to his eyes and down his throat. He scrunched his nose to try and get it out, but Mandy’s voice just hit his ears and started the cycle over.

“I’m your best fucking friend, Ian. Why won’t you tell me what’s—”

“Ok, you want to know what the _fuck_ I think, Mandy?”

He was so angry.

“I think my life is so much fucking better without him. He’s you’re brother, you know what he’s like. He’s a fucking criminal. He’s aggressive, and rude and fucking pissed me off every chance he got. We’d just fight and fuck and repeat. Everyone knew it! Shit, everybody _said_ it. I should be fucking glad he’s gone.”

He didn’t realize he was yelling until he was too heightened to stop. His volume increased the more his heart broke—every time a nasty word passed through his gritted teeth—but his hands didn’t shake because he believed the words coming out of his mouth. Really, it was the opposite: it was easier to paint Mickey as the villain everyone assumed he was as than to accept the memory of the lover Ian knows he is. To remember how he climbed in bed with him when he was feeling alone and crazed; to remember how he took care of him, stayed with him, almost killed someone when she tried to hurt him. It was more painful not to remember a fake devil, but to recall how wet his eyes had been as he stood at the front steps, told him he loved him—told him he was family—and Ian only turned away.

Yet, while Ian feels so much love and guilt at once, he knows that what he is doing is only twisting their years-old problems to anger and letting them get misconstrued in Mickey’s absence. Letting hate fester in Fiona, and in Lip, and in the passing friends and boyfriends to whom he can only offer the surface of his past. Hate for a man he still loves so much that he hates himself for it.

And, in his spiral of lies and regret, Ian hears Mandy release the smallest laugh. 

“Are you…” Ian’s shock snaps him from his lament. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” Mandy says, much too at ease for having just heard the barrage of hatred dumped upon her brother. “It’s just…I thought you would’ve gotten all comfortable working for the government, but you’re still as fucked up as ever.”

Ian scratched the back of his head, letting his heartrate slow back down to a mild thump. “You can take the boy out of the South Side.”

It was then that the conversation lulled to a stop, and they said goodnight, I miss you, and all the rest. Ian had never been so hesitant to hang up ever in his life. He wanted to know why she still thought about Mickey; specifically, Mickey and him. From what he gathered before, she thought of her brother as lesser to a slug, and any Joe off the street a better choice of lover for her best friend, so why does she bother to show concern all these years too late? 

Ian places the phone on the bedside table and slumps down onto the edge of the bed. He thinks of Mandy, but her face in his head masculinizes and her hair darkens and cuts short. He tries to revert it, but his subconscious won’t let the image go. He looks at Lip, asleep with his book open on his chest, then at the women in the posters on the wall, trying to find a face to plaster over the one that haunts him. But it’s no use. 

So he lies back in bed and closes his eyes, giving in to the fact that Mickey will never let him sleep alone again. Even if he isn’t there, he will never leave him, and that’s the hardest part.

~~~

When Mandy hangs up the phone, she holds it a while, an unsurprised smile balancing on her lips. She grabs a vodka shooter from the hotel room’s minibar, unscrewing the cap without a moment’s thought of prices. “He’s a fucking bad liar.” She said, sipping the booze like a glass of water.

The voice to her back wavers, quieter than she ever thought she would hear it, but with more venom than she can appreciate. “The fuck’s that ‘sposed to mean?” He sounded like he was holding his breath, teeth grinding so furiously that it could be heard over the sound of anxiously ripping paper. “’Fucking glad he’s gone,’ huh? You’re a fucking bitch, you know that? Putting that on speakerphone for me to hear.”

“Fuck off, it’s not like he means any of it.”

“Well what the fuck else does that mean? I’d love to know.”

Mandy turns and shakes the shreds of hotel stationary from his hands, handing him the half empty vodka bottle instead. “I think he misses you.”

Mickey doesn’t look up at her, and doesn’t drink from the bottle either. He just watches his hands. When he finally does look up, there is grief in his eyes. And, amidst that, hope. 

“So you think it might work?”


End file.
